


Sister

by glitterburn (orphan_account)



Series: the sun will fade [4]
Category: Otogizoushi
Genre: Community: rarepair100, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-28
Updated: 2011-02-28
Packaged: 2017-10-16 00:19:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/166421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/glitterburn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Raikou gains in strength as a result of Seimei’s medicine, and in conversation with his sister Hikaru, he considers a return to court.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sister

Raikou wakes. A slow rise from sleep, a gentle awareness of the room around him. The shadows are long across the polished floor, and the sunlight is stained a languorous shade of gold. Afternoon, he thinks, turning his head towards the promise of a breeze beneath the bamboo blinds. The scent of aloes and cinnamon lingers faintly, mixed with the smoke-dusted smell of burnt poppy seeds.

Seimei had knelt here and watched over him.

The knowledge brings a smile to Raikou’s lips. He sits up, one hand pressing down over his chest to cage in his cough, but his chest is free of tension and his lungs are clear. He relaxes his shoulders, tilts his head from side to side to banish any remaining tightness. Then he kicks back the quilt and kneels, then stands.

There’s a bell set beside his bedroll, a little bronze bell so he can summon assistance any time of the day or night. Raikou ignores it. He walks across the room, the glossed silk of his under-robes trailing behind him, and slides open the door.

The house is quiet. Raikou shuffles between the divisions of screens and curtains, peering into the cloistered rooms. At length he reaches his father’s study, but it, too, is empty of human presence. The books and scrolls occupy their places upon shelves; a map of the northern provinces crosses the low writing desk, weighted down on three corners by an ink-stone, a writing box, and a Chinese jade belt ornament.

Raikou examines the map, traces the road he and his father took from the capital into the troubled lands of the north. The illness that plagues him had been manageable back then. He’d lived with it for years, a sickness that doctors attributed to seasonal flux, something that came upon him the way winter brought coughs and sneezes. His father had joked that the air of the north was clearer, purer than the air in the capital. The north had a better climate for treating seasonal flux; a pity, then, that its inhabitants were so disruptive and the harvests so poor.

Perhaps his father had been right. Since his return to Heian-Kyo, Raikou’s sickness has grown worse. And now, with Lord Seimei talking of imbalance in the world and the violence within the capital, Raikou wonders if he would be better off in self-imposed exile far from here.

Footsteps sound in the main hall, light and rapid. He knows who it is long before she appears—his tomboy sister Hikaru. She’s never been content to sit in the seclusion of the women’s hall, never been happy to embroider or write poetry. She shows no interest in playing matching games or in dyeing silk or in blending incense. From the day she was old enough to toddle, she followed him, copied him, fought with him.

Hikaru enters the study and jerks back, a gasp shocked from her. “Brother!”

Raikou turns, smiling. “Hikaru.” He skims a glance over her attire—not the elegant layered robes and Chinese jacket of a noblewoman but the rough, working clothes of the Minamoto retainers. “You have been training with Watanabe no Tsuna again?”

A blush colours her smooth cheeks as she sidles into the room. “Yes. Father permitted it.”

“Take care Tsuna doesn’t forget his place,” Raikou says, fake-scowling and trying to sound stern. “A retainer teaching swordplay to the only daughter of Commander Mitsunaka... If such news were to be made public, little sister, it would cause all kinds of scandal at court, and I regret your chances of making a good marriage would be quite destroyed.”

Hikaru wrinkles her nose and sticks out her tongue. “Tsuna is a fine swordsman, almost as good a swordsman as you. And since I can’t practice against you...”

Raikou touches his chest again, reminding himself of his weakness and how much better he feels. “Soon, perhaps, we’ll be able to spar once more—and then I’ll see if Tsuna has taught you anything.”

“Then you are recovering? Abe no Seimei’s magic is working?” Hikaru forgets her pique and moves forward, hands outstretched. Joy shines from her face. She hesitates just before she reaches him, then drops to her knees, head lowered. Her shoulders quiver and her voice sounds oddly muffled when she says, “Oh, Raikou. I’m so happy!”

“You shouldn’t weep if you’re happy.” He crouches down and regards her bowed head with affection. Her heavy coil of hair is caught up in a topknot tight enough to pinch the skin at her temples and covered with a scrap of cloth most women would shrink from in horror. Hikaru is not most women. Raikou gives thanks for this fact. He places gentle fingers beneath her chin and lifts her gaze. She has a smudge of dirt on her cheek, and he wipes it away, giving her time to compose herself.

They smile at one another. Raikou studies her face, seeing his own features reflected in hers. Physically they resemble one another so closely it’s as if they were twins. In days long past, when they were both scarce out of childhood, they dressed in each other’s clothes and tried to fool their parents, the family retainers, and the servants. Hikaru could imitate him well enough, striding around with an easy gait, but it was more difficult for Raikou to emulate his sister. It was always Raikou who gave away the game of their pretence, for he overcompensated for Hikaru’s boyish nature by moving in a delicate, feminine manner quite unlike his rambunctious sister.

Hikaru dries her eyes on her sleeves and sits sideways. Her fit of happy weeping has passed, and now she regards her brother with excitement and interest. “This is the first time I’ve seen you up and out of your room on your own since...” her brow creases with thought, “since the end of the fourth month.”

“A long time to be confined to one place.” Raikou sits also, crossing his legs in the informal position they’d adopted as children. He draws his under-robes closer about him and turns his gaze to the garden beyond the study. The cherry tree is still in full blossom, but since Seimei told him it was symptomatic of the capital’s sickness, Raikou no longer sees it as the miracle his father declared it to be.

“It gladdens my heart to see you like this.” Hikaru moves closer to him. “Even though I’ve been into your room many times these past few months, even though I’ve seen you walking around the garden leaning on Father, I’ve missed you so much, brother. And it’s hard to listen to what rumour says, even if I know it’s not true.”

Raikou looks at her. “What kind of rumour?”

She lowers her gaze to hide the mischief dancing on her face. “You know better than I what courtiers say in idle moments. Father never repeats gossip, but Tsuna does—I make him tell me!—and the palace gentlewomen sigh that your looks are quite gone...”

A snort of laughter escapes him. “How do they know, when not one lady has deigned to call on me? They are as silly as a gaggle of geese, clucking over nothing.”

Hikaru looks up at him, serious, but there’s a glint in her eyes. “Oh, but brother, several ladies claim to have come to see you! Perhaps your illness has scattered your wits and you’ve forgotten all your love-struck midnight visitors. According to one lady, your body is covered in horrible boils. Another says your hair has fallen out. Yet another says you are whole in body but lost in spirit and believe yourself to be an owl hooting from a tree.”

Raikou’s good humour fades. “How stupid. And people believe this?” When she shrugs, he continues, “Of course they do. I’ve had enough experience of court life to know they believe every stray rumour that goes around. It must be so painful for Father. To have so much power, yet he is as vulnerable as the lowest servant to loose talk.”

His thoughts churning, he continues, “Tell Tsuna to carry on listening to gossip and report it to me. While these are nothing more than boudoir ramblings, such talk can turn to more serious accusations in a heartbeat. I would not have Father’s position at the palace compromised because of my illness.”

Hikaru touches his arm, and Raikou realises how tense he’s become. He forces himself to relax, focusing once more on the cherry tree. Its petals flutter in the breeze, pale pink against the deep blue of the sky.

“Soon we can lay the gossip to rest,” Hikaru says. “You have colour in your cheeks and a fierce determination in your tone. You haven’t coughed once in the time we’ve been here. You must be well on the way to recovery.”

Raikou doesn’t want to believe in too much, too soon. “Perhaps.” It sounds gruff and graceless. He tries again. “Lord Seimei warned against hoping overmuch for a miracle. My illness is severe.”

“Still,” says Hikaru, waving away his caution, “it seems to me that you’re getting better. A miracle would be when you meet me at the archery butts and beat me three time out of three, as you used to do, but I would settle for seeing you properly dressed and taking your place at court again by Father’s side.”

He chuckles. “If the gods are willing, and if Lord Seimei’s medicine continues to improve my health, very soon I’ll be able to return to the palace, beat you at archery, and give both you and Tsuna a lesson in swordplay.”

Hikaru laughs. She catches at his hand, squeezes it. “It’s fortunate indeed that Lord Seimei agreed to Father’s request to tend you. After the attempts of that last yin yang master, I was all for turning our backs on the Bureau of Divination and hiring a shaman woman from the villages. But Lord Seimei has been a blessing.”

“Yes,” says Raikou, smiling, warmth blossoming inside him at the thought of his masked visitor, “he has.”


End file.
